Breast-cancer screening.

Consensus is still lacking on guidelines for breast-cancer screening with mammography: who should be screened, how frequently at what age, to what benefits and at what risks. American, Dutch, Swedish and Italian studies spanning the 1960s to the 1980s reveal a benefit from screening (reduced mortality from breast cancer) that occurs unambiguously only in women 50 years of age and over. Physicians who choose to screen mammographically their over-49-year-old female patients must do so with the awareness that to achieve screening benefits, highest-quality mammography equipment and technique are required.